Some of these neighborhoods (e.g. Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Little Ethiopia, and Thai Town) are broadly popular and attract tourists of all ethnicities in search of food, trinkets, and Instagrammable moments.Others attract tourists but almost exclusively of a single ethnicity, drawn to an area in search of goods and sensations that remind one of home. I would place Little Saigon firmly in the last category as you rarely see non-Vietnamese (aside from the occasional creeper) — which is a shame because there’s so much to enjoy for visitors of all backgrounds. In observance of Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month, I explored the region with my friend and educational consultant Quynh Nguyen and her friend, Peter Vo — to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude for their help on so many levels.

VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN IMMIGRATION HISTORY

Today Vietnamese-Americans are a huge minority in this country; Vietnameseis the sixth-most spoken language in American homes. There are more than a quarter million Vietnamese speakers in the Southlandalone and two thirds live in Orange County. In fact, 40% of all Vietnamese living in the country live in Orange County, predominantly in the North County communities which Little Saigon has effectively absorbed.

It wasn’t until the McCarran Internal Security Act that most Asians even had the option of becoming naturalized American citizens but from its passage in 1950 until 1974, only 650 Vietnamese were reported to have moved to the US, mostly students, diplomats, military trainees, and the wives and children of servicemen.

It was also 1950 when the first American military advisors arrived in Vietnam, to assist in the Frenchoccupation of Indochina. In the first two years of the 1960s, after a decade of occupation, American troop numbers escalated dramatically. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the first American combat troops were sent to the country in 1965. Eight bloody years of war and atrocity followed in which likely more than a million people lost their lives.

Direct American military involvement in Vietnam ended in 1973. On 30 April, 1975, the fall of Saigon to theNorth Vietnamese marked the end of the war and the beginning of a mass exodus to the United States. The first wave of Vietnamese immigrants, the so-called 75ers, comprised of roughly 175,000 refugees, each of whom were processed in four processing centers in Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Fort IndiantownGap in Pennsylvania, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and — across the border from San Clemente— Camp Pendleton in San Diego County.

Most of the 75ers had close ties with American forces or were part of the petit bourgeoisie and thus faced deadly retribution or “re-education” from the conquering Communists if they remained at home. About half of the 75srs were Catholicand most came from urban centers, were well-educated, and in many cases, spoke English fluently.

The then-previous census, undertaken in 1970, revealed the just 6% of Orange Countians were born abroad and a poll held in 1975 showed that only 36% of Americans were in favor of allowing Vietnamese refugees to stay in the country. However, once the door was open it never never closed and now one-in-three Orange Countians was born abroad and white Anglos are one of the region’s minorities.

A second wave of refugees arrived beginning in 1978. By 1980 there were still fewer than 60,000 Asians of all ethnicities living in the entire state of California. However, after President Carterpassed the United States Refugee Act in 1980, immigration from Vietnam increased and more than half a million Vietnamese came over the next two decades.

Like the first group, the second wave included both ethnic Vietnamese and many Vietnamese-born Chineseof various ethnicities. However, unlike the 75ers, many of the second wave were poor, came from rural villages, were less-educated (although often had endured “re-education”), were in most cases Buddhist, and made the transpacific journey via small fishing boats, which accounted for their often being mocked as FOBs (“Fresh Off the Boat”).

Like the 75ers, the second wave settled primarily in North Orange County and the San Gabriel Valley(namely Alhambra, El Monte, Monterey Park, Rosemead,and South El Monte). Following them was a final, less-often recognized wave of immigrants who came after the 1988 passage of the American Homecoming Act. Both post-75 groups were less-likely than the 75ers to speak English at the time of their arrival in the country, which largely accounts for some of the assimilation difficulties that distinguish them from the 75ers.

BEGINNINGS OF LITTLE SAIGON

Little Saigon was first established in the suburb of Westminster. Before the influx of Vietnamese, Westminster was a community of roughly 60,000 people; mostly white, working class and having arrived in the area following the post-World War II suburbanization of North Orange County that fanned out from nexus of Long Beach. Pre-war residents were few in number and primarily engaged in the agricultural operation of nurseries, orange groves, and strawberry fields (as far as I know, Allan Kayano‘s, strawberry farm – planted in 1952 – is one of the last in operation).

The Garden Grove Freeway tore through the Westminster in 1965 and by 1970 the suburb was already in a visible state of decay and financial decline. Hoping to reverse the suburb’s moribund course, the Westminster Mallwas constructed in 1977 and in neighboring Garden Grove, which faced many of the same issues, a downtown redevelopment program was launched.

When the Vietnamese arrived at Camp Pendleton, some in Westminster and Garden Grove argued that Vietnamese resettlement in their communities might energize their town’s meager economies. One of the first Vietnamese-owned businesses to open in Westminster was a pharmacy and doctor’s office which opened on Bolsa Avenue in 1977 at a time when that street was home to a few bean fields, junkyards, auto shops, and not much else.

Soon there were several Vietnamese establishments along Bolsa including Dr. Pham Van Hoang‘s medical office, Hoa Binh Market, and the office of Tony Lam(who would later become the first elected Vietnamese official in the country). In 1978, Nguoi Viet Daily News (Nhật-báo Người Việt) began publishing a Vietnamese-language newspaper from a home in Garden Grove. Eventually, Nguoi Viet would expand into Nguoi Viet Online.

Bolsa Mini Mall

Two of the biggest entrepreneurs responsible for the establishment of Little Saigon are Frank Jao (趙閥), a Haiphong-born 75er, and Dan Quach, who immigrated to Bolsa via Nebraska in 1977 or ’78. Jao founded Bridgecreek Development Company in 1978 and the company opened the Bolsa Mini Mallin 1979. Jao, born to a Chinese father and Vietnamese mother, would eventually gain a polarizing reputation as a sort of Donald Trump of Little Saigon.

By 1981 there were about 350 Vietnamese businesses operating in Westminster and a petition circulated urging the city to “deny granting any license to any Indochinese refugee attempting to set up any business in this Viet town area.” Part of the hostility was no doubt part of Orange County’s rich tradition of racism but it also seems that the businesses weren’t generating quite the tax revenue that one might expect, although that probably came as less of a surprise to anyone who’d ever done any business within a cash-only /no-tax-charged immigrant community. Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, a group of Vietnamese businessmen was at the same time trying to create a rival Viet Town residential and shopping district.

Within the Vietnamese community of Garden Grove and Westminster, most referred to the Vietnamese area as either “Cho Bolsa,” “Khu Bolsa,” or simply, “Bolsa.” One of the first to call the area “Little Saigon” was Little Saigon News (Sàigòn Nhỏ), launched by editor/publisher Hoang Duoc Thao in 1985. Before that, the Los Angeles Times had published an article titled “Boom on Bolsa: Vietnamese Create Their Own Saigon.” The original Saigon had officially been renamed Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (Ho Chi Minh City) back in 1976 so the Little Saigon name came pre-loaded with additional subtext.

Tony Lam advocated, as did Frank Jao and others, calling the area Asiantown. Nonetheless, in 1988, a group of community leaders and then-governor George Deukmejian ordered Caltrans to install signs naming and providing directions to Little Saigon Tourist Commercial District, a 2.5 kilometer-long stretch of Bolsa, which they did on 17 June.

POLITICAL AND GENERATION GAPS

Much as with refugees from other nominally-communist dictatorships like the USSR and Cuba, Vietnamese refugees have tended to align themselves with the Republican Party presumably because it’s ideologically closer to Fascism and therefore presumably further from Socialism (and the perversion of that employed by Vietnam’s totalitarian regime). Tony Lam is a Republican. So too is Tri Ta, Westminster’s first Vietnamese mayor, as is Michael Vo, the mayor of Fountain Valley. But even if the Republican party continues to be strong within both the Vietnamese community and Orange County, both Vietnamese-Americans and Orange Countians seem to be gradually but perceptibly drifting to the Left. Although they don’t yet win as often as their GOP counterparts, there are an increasing number of Vietnamese Democrats running for office in Orange County.

Anti-Communist rallies still take place in Little Saigon although as time passes and political scars slowly heal, younger Vietnamese in the community seem far less-likely to show up at protests than the aging Vietnamese who experienced firsthand the atrocities committed in the name of political ideologies. This was not always the case and Little Saigon is, at least in Southern California, widely recognized for dramatic political disagreements and displays. On the day of my our exploration we saw Jeeps driven by uniformed veterans flying the flag of their fallen capital rolling down Bolsa.

The most well-known of the politically-charged incidents in Little Saigon was the so-called HiTek Incident. In 1999, Truong Van Tran — the owner of VHS rental store (HiTek TV and Video) as well as “the chosen one” in the Vo Vi cult — displayed an image of Hồ Chí Minh and the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at his shop in the Bolsa Marketplace. Hundreds of people protested and when the police stepped in, they noticed that he was dealing in pirated goods and he was jailed for that offense.

Other high-profile (if less-notorious) protests have involved the design of a proposed mall bridge for being “too Chinese,” the design of archway for the same reason (both were proposed by Chinese-Vietnamese businessman, Frank Jao), a campaign stop from John McCain (after he unapologetically referred to Vietnamese as “gooks”), Irvine‘s consideration of declaring its friendship with Nha Trang, the LGBT community’s participation in the annual Tet Parade, and the partially exposed intergluteal clefts of the girls working atlingerie cafés.

Unlike most ethnic enclaves, Little Saigon has effectively spread across a several cities — in this case a huge swathe of North Orange County — and established pockets that pay no apparent mind to official city boundaries. Besides Westminster, the cities have been slow to acknowledge this reality. In 2003, Garden Grove finally recognized a portion of its city as Little Saigon and Santa Ana did the same in 2004. The official borders of Little Saigon are currently a small area hemmed in by Euclid Street, Magnolia Street, McFadden Avenue, and Trask Avenue but parts of Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Midway City, and Stantonshouldn’t be overlooked just because they’re not officially recognized. The main drag of Little Saigon is still Bolsa (which becomes West 1st Street as it passes into Santa Ana) and I still know a lot of residents in the area who refer to the whole region, whatever the address, simply as “Bolsa.”

The Depot and the whole area are also served by the buses of Orange County Transit Authority(OCTA). Another transit option is Xe Đò Hoàng, who has operated low fare shuttles which have connected more distant Vietnamese communities and cities since the early 1990s. Currently Xe Đò Hoàng’s routes connect Chinatown, El Monte, San Francisco, San Jose, and Arizona. There are other shuttles too, like Xe Đò Lộc, which connects Little Saigon and Las Vegas. As far as I know, all of them offer Vietnamese sandwiches as a meal and thus are sometimes nicknamed bánh mì buses.

LITTLE SAIGON SHOPPING CENTERS

The main tourist attractions of Little Saigon are often found in shopping centers and on weekends it’s common to find people posted up and passing time in the vast parking lots surrounding them. Sometimes the shopping centers are the attraction – although none compete financially with nearby South Coast Plaza. One which tried and famously failed was New Saigon Mall, built in 1997 and demolished less than five years later. I have a fascination with strip malls and that I can’t put into words (although I suppose it’s somehow related to my love of business parks and anonymous corporate mid-rises).

ASIAN VILLAGE CENTER

Another of Frank Jao’s well-known shopping centers is Asian Village Center, built in 1985. Behind Asian Village Center is a long relief mural depicting the legendary Vietnamese heroes including the Trưng Sisters(Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị), who rebelled against Chinese rule in the 1st Century CE. Another nearby piece of public art is the Vietnamese Cultural Court, a sculpture garden including a statue of Confucius and his disciples that memorably appeared in The Fast and the Furious (2001) — although I had to be reminded.

Quynh eating pork in front of the disciplesVietnamese Cultural Court

Fast and the Furious trailer — Vietnamese Cultural Court at :54

ASIAN GARDEN MALL

Statues of Phước, Lộc, and ThọUpstairs at Phước Lộc ThọPhước Lộc Thọ

Across the street is Phước Lộc Thọ(known colloquially in English as “Asian Garden Mall”), which was built in 1987 (and opened in 1988) with the considerable financial support of Indonesian-Chinese and Taiwaneseinvestors and is as close to a recognizable icon as Little Saigon has. It was this mall which Jao had hoped to connect to Asian Village Center with a bridge of a “too Chinese” design. We, like the others, were forced for now to use a lowly crosswalk. Inside the mall, on the second floor, there are a lot of jewelry shops (of which you are told not to take photos). On the ground floor is a performance area and several eateries. Apparently inspired by the recent upsurge in Southern Californianight markets, Phước Lộc Thọ now holds its own small one on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. More night markets, please.

TODAY PLAZA AND OTHERS

Today’s plaza

Almost as iconic as Asian Garden Mall is Khu Siêu Thị (Today Plaza), anchored by T & K Food Market at one end and the “too Chinese” archway that did get built. It too was featured in The Fast and the Furious in a minor bit of geographic license). Other Little Saigon shopping centers include Garden Grove Shopping Plaza, Wesminster Colony Plaza, and a lot of others — the names of which I accidentally deleted.

LITTLESAIGON MARKETS

One of the major draws of ethnic neighborhoods are the markets, which invariably carry countless products that you will never find in the “ethnic” aisle of your local, neighborhood Albertson’s, Food 4 Less, Ralph’s,Trader Joe’s, Vons, Whole Foods (and the reason that my own garden includes bitter melon, burdock, chayote, purple yam, and tomatoes allowed to ripen to the point where they have more flavor than snowballs). It used to bother me that if I wanted, say, good green tea I had to go to Little Tokyo or Koreatown; if I wanted mock-tendons I had to go the Thai Town; jars of fried gluten and peanuts in MSG-laced soy sauce mean a trip to the SGV, and if I wanted gooseberries or dill pickle potato chips I had to go to another state — but now I relish the excuse to travel. If all of those things were available across the street, I might be tempted never to leave my neighborhood.

If you’re more inclined to leave the cooking to the pros, Little Saigon is home to a vast array of restaurants representing all kinds of Vietnamese specialties as well, of course, as non-Vietnamese food. Vietnamese cuisine is without a doubt one of the world’s most highly-refined cuisines. It’s the result of a fusion of indigenous ingredients and techniques, 1000 years of Chinese influence, 100 years of French influence and is often characterized by a green, pungent, herby freshness and balance of tastes. There are regional specialties from the north, south, and central regions as well as specialty dishes.

In the fairly recent past, Vietnamese food has been cautiously embraced by non-Vietnamese. Everyone seems to want it known that they love phở. They love to squirt loads Huy Fong‘s hot sauce into it too. Although I have nothing against whitewashed Vietnamese food and certainly recommend catering to one’s one palate rather than eating in the pursuit of authenticity, it strikes me as strange that the vast majority of residents of Central Los Angeles seem more than happy to pay way too much for the least interesting takes on Vietnamese for perhaps for no other reason than that they’re lazy when there are amazing Vietnamese places just over the hills or behind the Orange Curtain. Even comedian and self-described “sandwich expert”Aziz Ansarionly just had his first bánh mì – an event which he and his fellow Food Clubtreatment (albeit jokingly) as being worth of considerable pomp and circumstance.

If you’re a meat-eating omnivore and you eat for any reason other than merely to prevent starvation I can see no reason why you wouldn’t have plunged face-first into Vietnamese food around the time that you started eating solid food. Why knaves routinely forgo bánh canh, bánh xèo, bò 7 món,bún bò Huế, bún riêu,cá nướng, cơm tấm, hủ tiếu mì, or lẩu in favor of yet another sriracha-bombed bowl of mediocre phở at some boring Silver Lake eatery is to me one of life’s great mysteries.

If you’re a non-meat eating omnivore you’re in luck too. While there are many Vietnamese restaurants where there is nothing vegetarian on the menu, in most cases, if you ask, they’ll make you something vegetarian and to your liking. 80% of Little Saigon’s Vietnamese are Buddhist and naturally the Awakened One was a vegetarian so not eating animals is not at all a foreign concept, even if few Vietnamese are themselves full-time vegetarians. There are also a healthy number of specifically vegetarian restaurants in Little Saigon – my favorite is Bo De Tinh Tam Chay. If you like fake meats, you’re in luck too, but if you’re a true herbivore (akavegan) or member of the Kale Kinwa Kombucha Klan (the KKKK) then you might have a bit more trouble… but you’re no doubt used to that by now and can deal.

Lò Bánh Cuốn Tàn Tàn Tofu Co.

In the past I’ve eaten at the bánh mì chain — San Jose-based Lee’s Sandwiches and Little Saigon-based Bánh Mì Chè Cali – the McDonalds and Burger King of bánh mì – as well as the global vegetarian chain, Loving Hut. I’ve also enjoyed Banh Cuon Tay Ho, Banh Mi Cho Cu Bakery and, I think, Grand Garden for Emily Ryan‘s wedding. On the day of this visit, Quynh picked up pork from New Duong Son BBQ, I snacked on some truly delicious, handmade tofu from Lò Bánh Cuốn Tàn Tàn Tofu Co., and we all ate lunch at Ha Noi Avenue (or simply “Avenue” – opened by the original owners of the currently-being-remodeled-and-under-new-ownership Ha Noi Restaurant).

Of course there are non-Vietnamese restaurants in the vicinity too – there are Vietnamese-influenced Cajunchains (and Cajun-influenced Vietnamese joints) like The Boiling Crab, Cantonese restaurants,Teochew/Chiuchowrestaurants, Mexican restaurants (Alerto’s!), Thairestaurants, and In-N-Out Burgerbut since this is an entry on Little Saigon and not the cities over which it’s spread, my focus here is on Vietnamese restaurants, the looong list of which includes (subject, of course, to frequent change ) the following:

There are many places oriented around a variety of drinks in Little Saigon – if a few hundred less than there are restaurants. Peter said that the latest craze are boba houses, which seem to have taken over the lives of teenagers not just in Little Saigon but everywhere. Quynh and I started our tour by grabbing pandan juice from New Duc Huong, which was perfect.Later she grabbed a cane juice from Nuoc Mia Vien Tay.

Stopping for cane juice from Nuoc Mia Vien Tay

We ended our tour at Sugars – a bikini bar in Garden Grove near Little Seoul. There’s another bikini bar in Westminster, Green Girl Saloonbut as far as I can tell, there aren’t a whole lot of regular bars in the neighborhood and if you want beer (or cognac) you’ll more likely end up at a lounge.

Sugars of Garden Grove

LINGERIE CAFES

Even more notorious than the bikini bars are the aforementioned lingeries cafés. I was taken to one such café on a single occasion although I can’t remember which one it was. It was in a strip mall and it was there that I tried my first durian shake as I watched men gamble as they relaxed in a smoke-filled room lit by televisions and served by girls who seemed to be sporting more silicon and tattoos than clothing (does that narrow it down?)

An investigative piece of FOX journalism, “Sexy Coffee House”

On rare occasions there have been incidents such as in 1993 (21 years ago, mind you), when three people were shot at a lingerie cafe in Westminster. In 2011 the suspicious city of Garden Grove launched a probe into the activities taking place in the cafés. The OC Weeklyclaimed that there are over fifty lingerie cafes in Garden Grove (and put a picture of a girl in underwear on the cover of the issue). Huffington Post counted 37. I know of fewer than a dozen in the whole region but I also haven’t launched any probes into them — but I do suspect that the numbers are being inflated sensationally — and that some of the concern is as much racially-motivated as morally.

Anyway, the one’s that I know of are Cafe Chi Chi, Cafe Di Vang 2, Cafe Di Vang III, Café Dien Anh, Cafe Lu, Cafe M Cutie, GZ Cafe, Suoi Tien & Cafe, Temptation Cafe, and Starz Cafe. Whatever the number, ordinances have been passed in Garden Grove requiring the staff to fully cover themselves and now the local chapter of the morality police will have to find something else to worry about.

There used to be several ballroom dancing venues including Can, Diamond, and Ritz but all have closed.Majestic became Avec, which is currently trying to bring back the dance popular with an older set. On several occasions I’ve written a bit about the Vietnamese New Wave scene in which German Eurodiscoand Italo-disco performers – almost completely unknown in mainstream America – are feted like proper stars.

My first exposure to the “New Wave” (in the Vietnamese sense) scene was at the Shark Club, where it was spun by DJ Alpha. I later met DJ BPM, Italo Chris and other enthusiastic veterans of the scene. I got to see Italo-disco star Gazeboperform at Galaxy Theatre (where he changed the line from “Masterpiece” from “All Sunset Boulevard has been waiting the star” to “All Bolsa Ave…”). Galaxy has since become theObservatory.

Other clubs include Can Asian Entertainment Bar & Grill, Rendezvous Nightclub, and Rex Lounge. Local performers that I know of include Tommy Ngô, TQ, Trizzie Phuong Trinh, and Lynda Trang Đài. Lynda Trang Đài was born Lê Quang Quý Trang Đài in Da Nang in 1968. Virtually unknown outside of the Vietnamese community, she famously attracted attention, controversy, and rumors for her relatively racy performances.

If you fancy having a go yourself, there’s always karaoke – although not having been to any karaoke bars in Little Saigon I’m not sure what songs the books generally include and in what language(s) they’re generally written. Anyway, neighborhood karaoke places include Cafeoke Ding Dong Dang, Elvis!? Karaoke Studios, Idol Karaoke, Karaoke Nice, Ozzie’s, and Shanghai’d Room. It should be noted that one can also often engage in karaoke at the aforementioned lounges — just call ahead.

Nguyet Cam Music

There are many music stores in Little Saigon, with large selections of music sold on audio cassette and compact disc. Many of the stores selling music are multi-media and customers can also buy movies, games, phone cards and more. Stores focusing primarily on music include Bien Tinh Music, Cao Dao Music,Huong Music, Lan Song Xanh Music, and the incredibly cramped Nguyet Cam Music. If you’d like to take music lessons, there’s Little Saigon Music Academy and I’m sure others.

LITTLE SAIGON MEDIA

Little Saigon is home to a pretty large consortium of Vietnamese-oriented media production and consumption. Attempting to sort out what their specialities are has proven about as difficult as doing the same with Prestige Worldwide — especially as I probably know fewer than 100 words of Vietnamese. Any, there are companies called Vân Sơn Music and Entertainment and Trung-tâm Asia. One company that I was already familiar with is Thúy Nga, founded by Tô Văn Lai in Saigon but long headquartered in Westminster. Their most famous production is the Vietnamese variety program, Paris By Night. They also produce Văn Nghệ Magazine, and audio books, and VietFaceTV.

Although the Vietnam War is only rivaled by World War II in popularity as a Hollywoodsetting for war films, very few Vietnamese depictions of Vietnam ever even make their way to American art houses. Reflecting this reality, Amoebahas a small Vietnamese film section in which one can usually find up to three Trần Anh Hùng and maybe a one or two Charlie Nguyen films. Vietnamese Cinema is almost exclusively made by and for Vietnamese audiences. Even in a World Cinema class that I took, the only Vietnamese director whose films we watched was Trịnh Thị Minh Hà.

Bich Thu Van

Of course there are a few video stores in Little Saigon with the sort of mainstream Hollywood titles that you can find in any Redbox or streaming site. There are also stores catering to other ethnicities (hello Spanish Video, Filipino Video Gen Merchandise, and Sarangbang Video).

Loew’s opened the Fountain Valley Twin in 1971. General Cinema took over in 1973 and Edwards made it the Edwards Twin Cinema in 1978, which closed around 1998. In 2008 that long-dormant theater re-opened as the Star Performing Arts Center, which has since been re-named the SaiGon Performing Arts Center and features Vietnamese music, celebrities, and entertainment.

Little Saigon itself has rarely been acknowledged by Hollywood. In Gleaming the Cube(1989), Christian Slater‘s brother is Vietnamese (and played by Thai actor Art Chudabala) and the film includes scenes shot in Garden Grove. In an episode of The OC (“The Dearly Beloved”), Jess had a drug deal with some gangsters from Garden Grove, all of whom were played by Asians (led by Pinoy actor Darion Basco). Our guide, Peter Vo, has has written several screenplays that were filmed around Little Saigon, including First Morning and Spirits: A Vietnamese Ghost Story (Oan Hồn). There’s also the annual Viet Film Fest, first organized by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) in 2003.

ART & MUSUEMS

Viet Art Center (image source: Soi)

There are at least ten museums located around the Little Saigon area although as far as I know, only the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana ever presents or hosts any events or exhibits having to due with Vietnam. The closest thing to a Vietnamese-American museum is probably Garden Grove’s VietArt Center, which in 2007 hosted a traveling Smithsonianexhibit, Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon.

MISSION CONTROL – VIDEO GAMES IN LITTLE SAIGON

No list of cultural institutions in Little Saigon would apparently be complete without the mention of Mission Control, a much-missed Garden Grove video game arcade popular with teenagers of all stripes. Some of those stripes were members of various gangs and in 1994 a youth named Huy Nguyen was shot. Vietnamese gangs have long had a hand in video gaming and sometimes installed games at various locations that with the flip of a switch could be transformed into illegal gaming machines. Whilst Mission Control survived that shooting, its ultimate demise probably owed more to the exodus of gamers away from arcades to home systems for which you can rent games at Hai Yen’s.

LITTLESAIGON BOOKS

If you’d like to learn more about Little Saigon from book, there are several (although, surprisingly, none yet in the Images of America series) that you could check out, including Ann Le‘s The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California’s Little Saigon, Anh Do‘s My Little Saigon,James M. Freeman‘s Changing identities: Vietnamese Americans, 1975-1995, Karin Aguilar-San Juan‘s Little Saigons: Staying Vietnamese in America, Nhi T. Lieu‘s The American Dream in Vietnamese, Nghia M. Vo‘s The Viet Kieu in America, Steven R. DeWilde‘s Vietnamese Settlement Patterns in Orange County’s Little Saigon. There’s also a web magazine, diaCRITICS, which covers Vietnam and the diaspora (and has, it should be noted, published my work on one occasion).

There are a few examples of interesting architecture sprinkled amongst the fading, bandage-colored boxes, single-story ranch homes, and generic McMansions. The shopping center at 9039 Bolsa Ave incorporates into its a design that looks to me like a Japanese fire lookout tower. There are restaurants whose buildings were obviously originally built by a chain – for example a Vietnamese restaurant in an old Taco Bell. The charming Kwan Yin Apartments in Westminster have a cod-Chinese aesthetic that pre-dates the protestations of area structures looking too-Chinese.

Interior of Chùa Dược SưChùa Dược Sư

Other than those examples, most of the most visually appealing buildings in Little Saigon are either malls or Buddhist Temples and in a few cases, Christian Churches. We stopped by Chùa Dược Sưwhere they were selling vegetarian food in the back – something Quynh said is common practice at many temples (I believe that they do it at Chùa Dieu Ngutoo).

There are several area parks in Little Saigon. In Sid Goldstein Freedom Park there there’s a Vietnam War Memorial which includes two twelve-foot tall bronze soldiers designed by Tuan Nguyen and completed in 1993. Village Green Parkis Garden Grove’s oldest, although its “Tower on the Green” was only added in 2002. I’ve been to Tet Festivals at Garden Grove Park and eaten bánh mì at Westminster Park.

There are and have been several people and organizations offering tours of Little Saigon. Cathy Kim-Vân Q. Le, Adult Services librarian at Aliso Viejo Library led a Little Saigon Bus Tour & Luncheon with the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. Chef Robert Danhi, author of Southeast Asian Flavors: Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, & Singapore, has lead culinary tours of the neighborhood. Our host, Peter Vo, provides tours on behalf of the Westminster Chamber of Commerce.

As always, please contribute your additions and corrections. Enjoy exploring Southern California, just start at Hollywood & Highland and go in any direction away from there and I guarantee it will be interesting. To vote vote for other Orange County communities, vote here. To vote for Los Angeles County communities, votehere. To vote for Los Angeles neighborhoods, vote here. Please leave any additions, corrections, or shared memories in the comment section. Tạm biệt!